


To Prolong the Act of Dying

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mention of injuries, Mentions of alcoholism, One-Shot, Self-Destructive Behavior, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 23:13:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>For Trina's birthday. Prompt was Joly & Grantaire friendship and hurt/comfort.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Joly has learned that Grantaire's injuries from brawls often look worse than they are. But it doesn't mean he's not still worried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Prolong the Act of Dying

**Author's Note:**

  * For [worriedducks](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=worriedducks), [Tumblr user worriedducks](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Tumblr+user+worriedducks).



> Written for the very lovely [worriedducks](worriedducks.tumblr.com) for her birthday! Posted here with her permission.
> 
> Title is from a quote by Thomas Horder: “It is the duty of a doctor to prolong life and it is not his duty to prolong the act of dying.”

The knocking on Joly’s apartment door roused him from the sleep he had barely just settled down to at the ungodly hour of two o’clock in the morning. He stumbled to the door to find Bahorel supporting a half-conscious Grantaire who grinned at him with a split lip, an already-blackened eye, and a nasty-looking gash on his forehead. 

And those were only the injuries on his face – given the careful way in which Bahorel held him upright, Joly guessed multiple contusions to Grantaire’s chest and ribs.

Joly stepped back and held the door open. “Put him on the kitchen table,” he told Bahorel with the calm command of someone who had done this before. He followed behind them, already rolling up the sleeves of his pajamas. “What happened?”

Bahorel plopped Grantaire down on the kitchen table and Joly went to wash his hands. “Bar fight,” he said cheerfully. “Grantaire, needless to say, lost.”

Grantaire turned his head just enough to stick his tongue out at Bahorel, who ignored him. Joly looked critically at the injuries on display. “Needless to say,” he murmured in agreement, pulling the first aid kit from the cabinet. “What did he do, pick a fight with a professional wrestler?”

“Close,” Bahorel told him in undertones, leaning against the kitchen counter. “He picked a fight with Gueulemer.”

Joly winced sympathetically, picturing the huge man in his mind. “Why did he do that, of all the asinine things that R does?”

Bahorel’s eyes flickered over to Grantaire as if checking to see if he was listening. “He and Enjolras may have had a, uh, tiff, for lack of a better term, at the meeting tonight.” He raised an eyebrow at Joly. “You’d know that if you had been there tonight.”

Shrugging, Joly moved over to the fridge to grab some ice out of the freezer. “I have an anatomy test that I’m studying for. Enjolras gave me permission to skip.” He threw a glare over his shoulder. “Now go sit in the living room because I know for a fact that you’re going to be useless to me, you big baby.”

Bahorel, for all the injuries he had sustained – which were numerous, given his own propensity towards brawling – was remarkably unsettled by other people’s injuries, almost to the point of being squeamish. Joly was the only one allowed to call him on this, if only for the fact that Joly had perfectly splinted every single one of Bahorel’s fingers at one point in time or another so that they set straight and did not pain him once they healed.

Even so, Bahorel leveled a glare at him even as he slumped into the living room. Joly approached the kitchen table, bringing the first aid kit and ice packs with him. “Hey, R,” he said cautiously, assessing the man before him. “How’re you feeling?”

Grantaire grinned almost lazily at him, seemingly unaware of the blood that speckled his teeth. “Fucking peachy, Joly. What do you think?”

Joly had done this enough times by now to know to ignore basically anything Grantaire told him. “I’m going to need to take your shirt off,” he said in lieu of answering Grantaire’s sardonic question.

“Normally I make someone buy me a drink before that,” Grantaire said, chuckling weakly before breaking off into a groan of pain as Joly carefully peeled his t-shirt off and over Grantaire’s head.

Joly could not help but grimace as he saw the purple bruises blossoming over Grantaire’s pale skin, but he knew from plenty of experience dealing with Grantaire’s various injuries that they most likely looked worse than they really were. A quick scan told him that it was unlikely that any ribs were broken, which ruled out most of the more worrisome internal injuries. “Looks like Gueulemer went easy on you,” Joly informed Grantaire, turning his attention to Grantaire’s face, leaning over to examine Grantaire’s eyes.

Snorting, Grantaire rolled his eyes. “Fuck you,” he snapped, no real venom in his voice.

“No concussion,” said Joly off-handedly, ignoring Grantaire’s comment. “When are you going to stop picking on guys three times your size, R? One of these days you’re gonna get yourself killed.”

Bahorel barked a humorless laugh from the living room. “Never. He’ll outlive us all, the bastard.”

Joly threw a glare at him. “You’re hardly one to talk.” Bahorel made a face but settled back against the couch. Turning his attention back to Grantaire, he peered closely at the gash on Grantaire’s forehead. “I don’t  _think_  this is going to need stitches…”

“You should be wearing gloves, Joly,” Grantaire reminded him as Joly’s fingers ghosted over Grantaire’s skin, cracking a grin that would have been wicked were it not for the bruise that covered half of his face. “You could catch AIDS.”

Joly rolled his eyes. “You don’t have AIDS, Grantaire. I did your last STD test, remember?”

Still smirking, Grantaire said, “Yeah, but that was like a year ago. You don’t know what I’ve contracted in the meantime.”

“Oh really?” asked Joly drily, expertly assessing the still-oozing cut on Grantaire’s forehead. “And when would you have been able to contract HIV when you’ve been too busy pining after Enjolras to get laid?”

Grantaire visibly winced, though whether from Joly wiping the cut on his forehead with rubbing alcohol or from Joly’s words, it was hard to tell. Bahorel let out a low noise from his perch in the living room. “Low blow, man,” he muttered, just loudly enough for them to hear.

Though Grantaire didn’t say anything, his eyes tightened slightly and Joly bit his lip, knowing his had probably gone a little far. So he gently brushed the curls out of Grantaire’s face in a silent apology, which judging by the half-smile Grantaire returned, was accepted.

They had done this dance many times before, one of Les Amis bringing Grantaire and Bahorel back to Joly’s after a bar fight had gone wrong. But that was just the thing – it was normally Grantaire and Bahorel. Of late, however, Grantaire had been getting into more brawls as if he was seeking them out.

Which he probably was.

Of course, Grantaire would never admit that, and Joly had learned long ago to not question him about this. He was just a doctor, after all (well, a med student, but still), and definitely not the kind of doctor equipped to deal with that flood of issues. Instead, he offered what solace he could, through washcloth-wrapped ice packs and the occasional set of stitches.

One day Grantaire might go too far, might be injured so much that Joly could do nothing for him but ride with him to the hospital.

But not today. Today’s injuries were fairly routine.

“I have to knead your abdomen, check for any internal bleeding,” Joly told Grantaire, who cracked one eye open enough to blearily glare at him.

“Jolllly, you do not need to press my fucking—oof.” He winced visibly. “Yeah, that doesn’t feel good.”

“Hmmm,” murmured Joly, prodding deeper with his fingertips, ignoring the way Grantaire’s hands clutched the side of the table compulsively, knuckles white, “I think it’s just bruising, so that’s good. Although…you appear to have an enlarged liver.”

Grantaire snorted. “No shit, Sherlock,” he grumbled. “I think an enlarged liver is the least of my concerns at the moment.”

Joly had to bite his lip to keep from saying anything. Grantaire’s drinking was a concern, as Joly mentally ran through all the alcohol-related diseases that could and did present with an enlarged liver. But Grantaire was right – that was perhaps a concern for another day.

Instead, he finished his assessment of Grantaire’s stomach and pronounced, “No internal bleeding that I can tell. No broken limbs. You’ve even made it out without a concussion. All in all, one of your better nights, R.”

“Damn straight,” muttered Grantaire, leaning his head back against the table and closing his eyes.

Yawning, Joly said, “Well, given as how I don’t think you’re going to die for the next few hours, I’m going to go back to bed and actually try and get some sleep.”

Grantaire’s eyes snapped open. “And what, pray tell, am I supposed to do?”

“Get some sleep yourself,” Joly suggested.

Shooting him a withering glare, Grantaire asked, “What, on your kitchen table?”

Joly shrugged. “You can move to the couch if you want.”

Bahorel snored from the aforementioned position on the couch, and Joly sighed. “Guess not. Looks like you’re sleeping here,” he informed Grantaire.

“Joly, you can’t just leave me here,” Grantaire whined, looking at him pleadingly. “It can’t be good for my injuries to sleep like this.”

Joly pursed his lips and rolled his eyes, but he had known where this was going ever since Bahorel lugged Grantaire through the door. “Fine, you can sleep in my bed,” he sighed exasperatedly.

Grinning, Grantaire asked sweetly, “Can you help me get to your bed? I appear to be injured.”

Though Joly grumbled “Injured? I’ll fucking show you injured, you lazy ass sod” under his breath, he nonetheless allowed Grantaire to slide his arms around Joly’s neck as he lifted the other man off the table, surprised as always by how light Grantaire was.

Then again, the man seemed to subsist on nothing more than booze, cigarettes and exasperation directed at him from Enjolras, so perhaps it was not that surprising.

Joly deposited Grantaire as gently as he could on the bed, helping him adjust to a position that didn’t exacerbate his injuries. Then he slid in on the other side of the bed, pulling the covers over both of them. There was a scuffle under the sheets, then Grantaire snuggled against him. “R,” Joly sighed with only mild irritation, “that cannot be a good position for you to sleep him.”

Grantaire hummed in agreement, his breath heavy against Joly’s neck. “Mmm.”

Joly looked down at the man curled around him. “Grantaire,” he said softly, “you’re injured. I don’t want you to injure yourself more.”

Tilting his head back ever so slightly, Grantaire opened his eyes just enough to roll them so that Joly could see. “I’m not gonna break, Joly.”

Joly frowned. He had seen far too much evidence to the contrary of that tonight. “You could, though.”

They both knew he was talking about more than just the injuries Grantaire had received that evening.

After a long pause, Grantaire said softly, “If I do, you’ll always be there to put me back together.”

Reluctantly, Joly reached out to pull Grantaire into a more comfortable position against himself, resting his cheek against Grantaire’s dark curls. Yes, he would always be there for Grantaire, no matter how broken the other man was. He would always put him back together again.

Or at the very least, he would always try.


End file.
